The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

Buddhist Hour
Radio Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Script 353 for Sunday 31 October 2004CE
2547 Buddhist Era


This script is titled:
Preservation of the Dhamma -‘The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts’

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in his book “The Transformed Mind”, wrote “there is no difference between a human being and animals or insects as far as the desire for happiness, and want to overcome suffering.”

He noted, however, that because of human intelligence and human memory, we can examine the process of suffering from a wider perspective. Philosophy or religion came into existence on that basis.

His Holiness wrote that day and night come and go unceasingly without considering whether we utilise them properly or not. They never wait for something good. Not only day and night but our breathing, too, is an ongoing process.

In fact, constantly changing nature is the product of the cause of its existence-breath: and this dynamic process of change that we see right across the spectrum of reality is the product of the very cause of creation.

We have begun at our Centre the process of digitising all audio recording of teachings at our Centre.

In today’s globalised world, communication occurs in an increasingly sophisticated fashion. Well-considered planning for Temples in the 21st Century incorporating ICT or Information Communication Techologies means that boundaries are now dissolving so that Buddha Dhamma teachings are delivered around the world 24 hours a day.

For the individual, the world is becoming increasingly time restrained, and therefore for people to access teachings when they they may not have the luxury of physically attending, for example, a public teaching, or going to a temple, digitised transmission of the Buddha Dhamma teachings is an appropriate delivery format.

To illustrate, students at our Centre have had the blessing of studying The Diamond Cutter, one of many teachings, others which include teachings of Mahamudra and Abhidhamma, taught by Geshe Michael Roach. The Geshe is located primarily in New York, USA. His teachings are digitally stored and can be downloaded in MP3 format from the Asian Classics Institute website at www.world-view.org.

The verbal and written teachings, for the most part in English and Tibetan, can be accessed by anyone around in the world with internet access.

In these early days of the 21st century it is an historic time in the process of digital preservation and dissemination of Buddha Dhamma. Digitisation means that students can learn Buddha Dhamma teachings in an affordable and time convenient way.

The Diamond Cutter text was lost to Tibet when many Buddhist libraries were destroyed during the last century. The Diamond Cutter text, which we have studied at our Centre, was located in a dusty museum archive in Russia some years ago, translated into English, and taught by Geshe Michael Roach in various countries including the USA and Australia.

Through digital media, preservation and multiplication of this precious text is made relatively easy. Even if the physical location of the printed copy is destroyed in the future, the probability of the teaching being preserved electronically and saved as printed copies through digital archiving as CD’s and on website servers in multiple locations such as at our Center, is high. This is a suitable model for preserving Buddha Dhamma teachings in this Dhamma ending age.

One Member of our Centre has disseminated many CD copies of the Kariyanametta Sutta or teaching on loving kindness. The Buddha taught the Kariyanametta Sutta over two and a half thousand years ago.

This recording was done by Venerable Mahinda, a student of Venerable Sri K. Dhammananda and Abbott of Aloka Meditation Centre in New South Wales, Australia, who has taught and guided meditation in Australia and overseas. The teaching includes a discourse on the benefits of practising loving kindness and chanting of the Metta Sutta in Pali and English. It is provided on CD for free distribution. At Venerable Mahinda’s request, there is no copyright on the recording, and it must always be provided at no charge.

The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts.

The Member made many copies which she passed along to her mother, who lives in the Australia outback. As a result, people who have never met a Buddhist monk nor come into contact with the Dhamma before are practising this precious teaching in the comfort of their own homes.

We presently have recorded on audio tape 352 one-hour radio broadcasts of the Buddhist Hour. The program has been broadcast live to air each Sunday for almost seven years. Today is our 353rd broadcast. Most of these are recorded digitally and in the future will be available for download using MP3 and/or other suitable technology for persons from around the world who wish to read, hear and study Buddha Dhamma teachings.

The John D. Hughes Collection Audio Tape Digitisation Project was initiated to preserve our collection of audio taped Buddha Dharma Teachings given by Master John D. Hughes over a 24 year period between 1979 and 2004.

Teachings given by other Buddha Dharma Teachers will also be preserved. Many of these recorded teachings were given at our Temple.

Audio tapes are subject to deterioration and have a predicted life span of between 15 and 25 years depending on the conditions of their storage and other environmental and usage factors.

The process chosen we have to provide long term preservation is digitisation. It is used by organisations such as The National Library of Australia and ScreenSound Australia for preservation of their audio recording collections.

Here we give a summary of information gathered from the Multicultural Documentary Heritage Workshop, National Library of Australia, with the cooperation of the National Archives, Canberra, 9-10 June 2004. Evelin Halls attended the workshop, and learned much good information pertaining to preservation of the library resources held in our library, the John D. Hughes Collection.

In the opening speech Sir James Gobbo, Chairman of the National Library of Australia Council, said, "Materials such as photographs, letters, videos, oral history, newsletters, reports, minutes of meetings collected by ethnic communities are an important part of Australia's heritage. These items need to be preserved for future generations because they document migrants' experiences of settling in Australia and their significant contribution to Australian life".

Sir James Gobbo said the philosophy of multiculturalism has three parts:
1. everyone that comes to this country must have a primary loyalty to Australia
2. everyone must be free to maintain their own cultural heritage
3. everyone must have respect for religions

The multicultural task force has the projects that the story of each group should be told, and that an encyclopaedia of the Australian people is produced.

The main aims for our heritage collection are to preserve, make accessible, and grow, for a long, long time.

The John D. Hughes Collections forms part of the mainstream repositories like the National Library.

An important step is that the community [members and friends of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.] does the maintaining and collection, that the community owns the asset, not individuals.

One way is to interview the old people about the collection and invite young people, have exhibitions, for example, and tell a story, and to continue that process.

The National Library of Australia wants a full record of Australia to be preserved.

The guide Significance is a manual that explains the process of significance assessment and what it is.

The John D. Hughes Collection is significant.

The Significance guide teaches how we can use our collection and bring out significance and value. - What is the story behind it? The story is important.

"Significance" is not just the physical nature, it is much broader: the history and the value - the story behind the objects.

Be careful when you "restore": you may remove traces of the story; there is a temptation to make things look better but you lose the story.

Objects often have more than one significance, but it does not matter how many - it is about significance not scoring.

There are four points of significance:

1. Historic significance
1People, events, places, themes.

2. Aesthetic significance
3Includes fine design

3. Scientific or research significance
Research component: the potential to yield more information; research potential

4. Social or spiritual attachment
Means people having a connection, either social or spiritual, to what is there (not social as historic). Some objects are beyond material significance = spiritual meanings above their historic meanings

We will assess the John D. Hughes Collection's significance and apply these four criteria.

If the community ceases to value significance, no longer cares, it can diminish significance.

Provenance = the life story of the object.

Provenance is used to document the origin of the record; the original order is to be kept; if you do not know the order, look for connections.
Provenance has a long tradition in the art world. If we describe our significance, we can get a grant.

We are about to undergo a cultural change in our organisation on the basis of significance.

The story is important.

Visit the Australian Museums and Galleries Online, AMOL at amol.org.au. This is a website from the National Library of Australia that provides copyright free manuals and guides how to work with and care for your collection. Copyright free means copy as much as you like.

We are legally required to provide one copy of our publications to the National Library and one copy to our State Library within one month of publication (see "Legal Deposit" brochure).

Deterioration: what does one thing make last longer than another?

The preservation guidelines state:

Do not ever laminate
Do not completely seal things in plastic
Make copies of laminated items
Do not use sticky tape - it will stain
Normal Reflex paper is ok; the next level up is Reflex archival paper
Zeta Florence paper and Conservation Resources International provide the top-range acid free paper
Acid-free paper is often made from cotton or linen (plant material)
Newspaper is highly acidic: make photocopies of newspaper articles
Put newspapers in separate pockets
Archival quality: boxes labelled "archive boxes" are not necessarily acid free or alkaline-buffered
Ink: look for permanent pens: permanent ink, otherwise it will fade
It is important to have clean, dry hands for general documents and books
Polyester sleeves are good - the ones that have "copysafe" written on them
Polyethylene is copysafe
UHU glue is ok, it is starch based
Do not store items in PVC (you can tell when it is PVC, it smells oily)
Do not fold paper
Textiles: do not fold
Wrap things in white old sheets, non-died calico bags; wash if new
Do not sit rolled things on something
Do not use magnetic photo albums
There are archival quality photo albums
Photo corners are good
Do not dry mount
Video tapes, audio tapes, CDs and DVDs have archival value of 10 years
Keep tapes and disks well and cool
Keep library clean, cool, dry, dusted and vacuum cleaned regularly
There will be no machines to play videos in the future
Solution: "migrate": still keep the original, but digitise and migrate (re-copy)
When you migrate, you may need to change the system
Note: every time you copy a CD you get an error rate - be conservative is the answer
Make transcriptions and store on acid free paper
Use plastic paper clips
Do not use staples that rust - remove
Books: do not pull out of shelf from top; otherwise spine will tear
Wash your hands every 1/2 hour rather than wearing gloves because they can make you clumsy
Do use gloves when handling art work such as paintings
There are archival aids or filotape document repair tape - it will not stain, but do not use it for art work, better take precious things to a conservator
You can put things in bags: glad wrap and glad oven wraps are good, even Safeway homebrands are ok
Document cleaning pad: rub in circles, but do not use over pencil and art work
You can use Staedtler mars plastic erasers to clean dirty marks on letters, etc.
Do not use rubber bands - rubber deteriorates quickly
Bubble wrap is ok to fill up space, for example in boxes
It is good to box things
For displays: use photo corners, frames, window mats to hold things down

An archive is a collection of stories, eg. The story about Buddhism, our organisation, Buddhism in Australia, etc. = the story of Australia.

Our story is told by the things we own, eg. Minute books, programs, reports, photos. The story is waiting to be written by historians, researchers, Buddhist scholars…

We must write down where everything is, and send copies of our archives to the State Library.

Document anything - ask for advice.

Custodians must be prepared to help and serve.

Responsibility with archives. It is essential that we document our work.
Collection policy
What, when, how, for whom …to collect
Access policy
Be definite: who, where, how
Descriptor standards
All lists must meet a certain standard (see publication and handout "keeping archives"
We thank Evelin for attending the workshop.

We thank all beings that have helped us with the John D. Hughes Collection. Please continue to help.

The first step to preserving the precious Teachings given by John D. Hughes over more than a 25-year period and recorded on audio cassette tapes for a 500 year period, is to create high quality digital files from each tape on a PC and then copy the files onto stable media such as archival quality CD's which have a predicted life span of up to 80 years.

Reproduction CD’s for general distribution can also be created.

Expert advice was sought for our project to guide us through the complexities and variables which are found in the field of digital preservation.

Mr. Greg Moss, Electronics Engineer, Preservation & Technical Services Branch of Screen Sound Australia, which is based in Canberra ACT (telephone 02 6248 2071) has provided a full analysis and set of recommendations tailored to our circumstances. The recommendations includes guidance of appropriate equipment to be used and digitisation process design.

The guidance has been provided free of charge. We express our gratitude to Greg Moss and ScreenSound Australia for his generosity and expert assistance.

The project required funding in excess of $1000. We welcome donations from persons wishing to help with this noble project to preserve these rare Buddha Dhamma teachings for future generations. If you would to help please telephone Frank Carter or Paul Tyrrell at the Chan Academy Australia on 9754 3334.

The needs assessment for the digitisation project took into account the level of available funding for the purchase of suitable software and equipment to achieve our objectives.

Several options were detailed, supported by clear recommendations for the option which was felt would best serve our needs.

The outcome we were looking for was to have a means to maintain the clarity of the original recordings at a very high (professional) level.

Each time a recording is copied there is the potential for a degrading of the sound quality.

We intend for our Centre to last for 500 hundred years. Over a period of this length the copying process must be managed very carefully to avoid the recordings degrading to a point of being inaudible.

Many of our recordings were originally made with a domestic level cassette player. As a result, some of the recordings are of poor sound quality in their original form.

With the software obtained we are able to “clean up” the sound quality of many recordings by removing electrical noise and background hum to improve clarity.

An operators manual for using the equipment has also been provided by our adviser Mr Greg Moss. In the future we will publish online detailed steps to follow in setting and implementing a digitisation process for persons and others centres interested in establishing a digital preservation program.

It was suggested that we use a professional quality cassette tape recorder as it is at this point where the sound quality can be compromised by inferior equipment. Once a recording has been degraded even high quality equipment applied later in the process cannot restore the sound quality.

The basic Specifications recommended are:

Frequency Response: 20 Hz - 15kHz +/- 3dB, all tape types.
Signal to Noise Ratio: > 55 dB A weighted, all tape types, no Dolby N\R
Channel Separation: > 40 dB @ 1kHz
Wow and Flutter: < 0.06% WRMS
Tape types supported: normal (FeCr), Chrome, Metal
Noise reduction system: Dolby B, C minimum, S desirable
Real-time counter
Replay head azimuth should be user adjustable
Replay level/volume should be user adjustable

The cassette machine purchased was a secondhand Nakamichi Model LX- 3. The brand was recommended as being the best equipment available. The equipment was source through Ebay at a cost of $180 Australian dollars. A users manual was also purchased from the USA for $20 Australian dollars.

An external soundcard device in included in the hardware package. The soundcard takes the conversions from analogue signal to digital signal out of the PC and protects the recording from electrical noise and impedance.

The basic specifications recommended are:

Analogue audio inputs/outputs: unbalanced to suit cassette recorder interface
Frequency response: 20 Hz - 20 kHz +/-.2 dB
THD+N: > .96 dB, BW 20 Hz - 20 kHz
Dynamic Range: > 96 dB, 24 bit sampling, wrt 0 dBFS, BW 20 Hz - 20 kHz
Sample rates: 44.1, 48 kHz
Quantisation: 16, 20, 24 bits
Dither and Noise Shaping: 16, 20 bit
Digital audio inputs/outputs: SPDIF and optical.
Analogue line and microphone I/O, SPDIF out, Optical I/O.

The sound card external device purchased was a Creative Labs Audigy 2NX external USB 2 at a cost of $249.

For a CD recorder suited to our needs, the only brand recommended as being of professional quality and having acceptable error analysis was Plextor. The Plextor laser burns more accurately than other brands.

The unit purchased was a Plexwriter CD internal burner, 52x CD-R, 32x CD-RW, 52 CD ROM Premium E, IDE. The burner comes with Plextools software for error checking and Nero Burn software. The unit and software cost $165.

In selecting the recording and editing software, one brand was recommended as being the most suitable for our purposes both in terms of quality and value for money.

The software is called Steinberg Clean V5, purchased for $85. The software is used for recording the sound files, editing, restoration and CD creation. Excessive noise in the sound recording can also be removed or reduced using this software.

The next issue was in the selection of types of recording media.

When the digital CD’s are being burned we plan to produce multiple copies of each recording, each copy serving a different purpose.

Firstly there should be an archive copy CD.

This needs to be a special long life archival CD used for long term safe storage.

A suitable type would be a phthalocyanine dye Gold CD. They are manufactured by MAM-A Inc (Mitsui) and can be purchased from Prodisc in Australia. A lower cost option may be to import them from the USA rather than buying locally. The cost the CD’s is presently being researched, but is believed to be around $3.00 per CD.

Other archive CD's are being investigated to provide acceptable storage life and quality while at a lower unit cost.

The archival CD should be kept in premium storage conditions.

They should be stored in individual CD packs and kept in a vertical plane. Temperature and humidity conditions need to be kept within suitable levels of near to 18 degrees Celsius and 20% RH.

It is important to keep sunlight off the discs and to keep acidic paper away from them.

Next, there should be an access copy. This copy is used to burn other reproduction CD’s. It can be a standard CD as it’s purpose requires it to be handled for general use rather than preservation.

Next is the offsite storage copy. This is a standard quality CD that is stored at an offsite location, again in premium storage conditions. This will provide a short to medium term back up in the case of damage and or loss of access to CD’s at the primary work site.

The equipment required for the digitising was installed in our library in September 2004.

Sorting of collection cassette tapes involved the checking of over 1000 audio tapes. They have been divided into Teachings given by John D. Hughes and other recordings.

There are about 500 individual tape recordings of John D. Hughes teachings. They have been sorted into years from 1978 to 2003 and placed into chronological order. Groups of cassettes of teachings given over a period of time such as during five day Bhavana courses held at at our Centre have been kept together as set.

All other audio cassettes will be sorted into years in a similar fashion for digitizing at a later time.

All the audio cassettes are being stored in the library in a specially prepared storage area. Once copied, each cassette has a yellow sticker fixed to it indicating copying is complete. A gold sticker is added to indicate that the cassette has been catalogued on our Organise library catalogue database software.

The archive CD's are to be stored in a steel storage cabinet in the Sariputta Room walk in wardrobe. They are to be individually labelled.

We have created a recording journal to keep details of each cassette we digitize through every stage of the process to the final step of cataloguing on Organise.

The journal lists the title of the Teachings, the contents of each cassette, the date each part of the process was completed and so on. It provides the history and other information required for cataloguing the cassette in the Dewey system within the John D. Hughes Collection library catalogue.

Each cassette will be labelled to ensure that all basic data is clearly visible on each audio cassette.

We are preparing a detailed instruction manual with which to train Members in how to use the equipment and participate in digitizing project. The instruction manual will also be provided online for other Temples and persons interested in implementing a similar type of recordings preservation program.

May you learn the nuts and bolts of preserving resources.

May you learn to value your resources.

May you offer the use of your resources to others.

May our Library Collection last for at least 500 years.

May you be well and happy.


This script was written and edited by Julian Bamford, Frank Carter, Leanne Eames, Evelin Halls, Anita Hughes and Jocelyn Hughes.


References:

LAN2: audiodig.rtf The John D. Hughes Collection Audio Tape Digitisation Project.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The Transformed Mind - Reflections on truth., love and happiness. 2001. Hodder and Stoughton. UK.

The Brooking Street Bugle, Issue No. 110 (New Series),
ISSN 1321 - 1463 (print), publication Date: 22 June, 2004


Readability Statistics

Paragraghs: 172
Sentences: 154

Averages:

Sentences per paragraph: 0.9
Words per paragraph: 19.9
Characters per paragraph 4.8

Readibility:

Passive sentences: 31%
Flesch Reading Ease: 52.5
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9.6
Colman Liau Grade Level: 19.17

Word count: 3799

Disclaimer

As we, the Chan Academy Australia, Chan Academy being a registered business name of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd., do not control the actions of our service providers from time to time, make no warranty as to the continuous operation of our website(s).

Also, we make no assertion as to the veracity of any of the information included in any of the links with our websites, or another source accessed through our website(s). Accordingly, we accept no liability to any user or subsequent third party, either expressed or implied, whether or not caused by error or omission on either our part, or a member, employee or other person associated with the Chan Academy Australia (Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.)

This Radio Script is for Free Distribution. It contains Buddha Dhamma material and is provided for the purpose of research and study.

Permission is given to make printouts of this publication for FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. Please keep it in a clean place. "The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts".

For more information, contact the Centre or better still, come and visit us.

© 2002. Copyright. The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.

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